Racial mistreatment hinted by supporter of elections supervisor

Nine years into a search for a new elections headquarters in Broward, a supporter of the county's elections supervisor hinted the reason there's still no office is that she's black.

Though Brenda Snipes rarely speaks at public meetings about the office project, her surrogates and advocates pass on messages to the County Commission.

Like: Snipes doesn't want to be stuck in the Lauderhill Mall, where her office is now, so why are you still pursuing it? Why you are so concerned about how much you spend, when you seem to find money for other people's projects? Snipes has been patient – why do you keep dragging this out? Last week, one message was blunt: Snipes doesn't want a "used, back of the bus'' facility.

Snipes, Broward's only countywide, elected black public official, hails from Talladega, Ala., and is well familiar with the segregation-era laws that forced African-Americans in her native state and much of the Deep South to ride in the rear of the bus. She laughed when told about the "back of the bus'' comment made by Commissioner Dale Holness, a black Jamaican-American.

Though Snipes, who holds a doctorate in education, said she doesn't feel she's been treated as second-class, she said her quest for a new office to consolidate her current two-site operation never seems to be a top priority for the County Commission, which must allocate the funds to pay for it. And she said she could understand that some might read race into that.

"It's sad if you have to conclude that, 'Hmm, this building hasn't been built because the person leading the organization is black,' " she said in an interview.

Holness' words last Tuesday were too much for some of his fellow commissioners.

"They pulled this before, the racial card,'' said a "shocked'' Lois Wexler, recalling a meeting last year when a group from Snipes' sorority for black women, Delta Sigma Theta, sat in the audience in their trademark red clothing, watching Snipes fight the county's proposal that she move her operations to a warehouse in Fort Lauderdale that she didn't want.

"Please don't use terms like 'back of the bus,''' Chip LaMarca urged Holness, adding that the county is "doing our best.''

Though commissioners moved ahead this month with two possible sites for a new elections office, one in Sunrise, the other in Plantation, Snipes' alleged mistreatment by the county – and the argument that she deserves a better facility than she's in – remain consistent threads in the endless loop of debates. The county's been working on finding, or building, a permanent elections headquarters for the entire nine years Snipes has been in office. The amount the county's been willing to spend, meanwhile, has dropped to $15 million.

Who's to blame for the years of delay? Some commissioners said Snipes hasn't been good at communicating her desires to them, and that she changed her space requirements and site preferences more than once. The Great Recession also threw commissioners off the path.

For many Broward residents, the history of local Jim Crow laws and segregation is part of collective memory, and complaints about disparate treatment of black residents continues today. The 2002 removal from office of Broward's previous supervisor of elections, Miriam Oliphant, also a black woman, raised complaints of racism as well.

Black candidates still struggle to be elected, though 27 percent of Broward's residents are black. Right now, two of the nine Broward commissioners are black. They are only the third and fourth black commissioners elected to the County Commission in Broward's history.

Growing up in Alabama, Snipes knows about black-white issues and said she tries not to make everything into one. Though she doesn't think the delays are based on her skin color, she said her project doesn't seem at the top of the list.

"I certainly hope that's not why this process has gone on as long as it has,'' Snipes said, conceding that "there probably are people in the black community that feel that way.''